Metallica Perform Entire Black Album At Prague Show

5/8/2012

Metallica surprised fans in the Czech Republic on Monday (07May12) by playing all the songs from their top-selling 1991 LP, "Metallica", a.k.a. "the black album for the first time ever as the band kicked off its European tour at Prague's Synot Tip Arena.

A statement posted on the band's website, reads, "What a great show here in Prague to start off the 20th Anniversary of the Black Album! The band surprised everyone, and played it backwards! During and after Sandman, it was pyro, pyro, pyro, and pyro!!! Sandman had fireworks, Fuel had the big flames..."

The band's setlist was as follows:

01. Hit The Lights

02. Master Of Puppets

03. The Shortest Straw

04. For Whom The Bell Tolls

05. Blackened

06. The Struggle Within

07. My Friend Of Misery

08. The God That Failed

09. Of Wolf & Man

10. Nothing Else Matters

11. Through The Never

12. Don't Tread On Me

13. Wherever I May Roam

14. The Unforgiven

15. Holier Than Thou

16. Sad But True

17. Enter Sandman

Encore:

18. Fuel

19. One

20. Seek & Destroy

Asked why Metallica decided to play the "black" album in its entirety on the current tour, the band's drummer, Lars Ulrich, told Kerrang! magazine, "The people at Download [festival] asked. It wasn't our idea."

He added, "The thing is, although we haven't played at Donington for six years, we have been to the U.K. pretty much every single summer since then. So they wanted us to do something different, and that's what they came up with. I quite like the fact that come [this] summer it'll be the 21st anniversary of the 'black album,' not the 20th."

Metallica will be performing the record in its entirety throughout the tour, including a slot at Britain's Download Festival next month.